Commerce secretary has great excuse for Trump’s gruesome jobs numbers

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick appeared on CNBC on Wednesday, where he tried to massage Americans’ growing concerns over the economy. When asked by host Sara Eisen about the godawful jobs numbers—specifically in manufacturing and small business—Lutnick gave the only excuse the White House has for their policy failures: It’s the Democrats fault! 

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Eisen: It's trade negotiations and deals. I do want to ask you about the recent economic data, because today we learned that the private sector is losing jobs, small business getting hit really hard, negative number in front of ADP. And one of the reasons that they cite is tariffs. So do you worry about some of the economic fallout here as these tariffs really take hold?

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Lutnick: No no, it's not tariffs. Remember you had the Democratic shutdown right. And what do you think happens to small business. The people who do business with the U.S. government, they know they're not getting paid, so they sort of slowed down their projects. … So the Democratic shutdown hurt the numbers. And then remember, as you deport people, that's going to suppress private job numbers of small businesses. … So I think this is just a near term that, and you'll see as the numbers come through over the next couple of months, you'll see that all pass. And next year, the numbers are going to be fantastic.

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